In the name of the Mother

Pachamama, the Amerindian Earth Mother, sells tourism to affluent westerners and is used by environmentalists to stop oil and mineral extraction. Indigenous peoples see the balance between tradition and modernity as more complex.

Festival of the Sun: women watch a procession during the Inti Raymi festival in the village of Pesillo, Ecuador

Jan Sochor · LatinContent · Getty

I went to Ecuador last year in search of Pachamama, the Amerindian goddess. Indigenous peoples, environmental activists and politicians are trying to ‘restrain the assaults of capitalism’. especially the extraction of raw materials, in her name.

‘Pachamama is a reality in the indigenous world,’ said Alberto Acosta, energy and mining minister in 2007 and president of the 2008 Constituent Assembly which, encouraged by President Rafael Correa, granted rights to nature and ecosystems. This was a world first and effectively recognised Pachamama. Acosta is now an opponent of Correa, accusing him of betraying his promise by allowing the continued exploitation of natural resources; Acosta represents an environmentalism that is highly regarded abroad.

‘To indigenous people, Pachamama isn’t just a metaphor, as it is in the western world. Native peoples see the Earth as a mother. They have a very close relationship with her. Of course, not all indigenous people view things like this; after all they’ve had 500 years of ongoing colonisation. The indigenous world hasn’t been spared by the logic of capitalism, individualism, consumerism or productivism. But there are still communities which organise their social, political, economic and cultural life around ideas such as Pachamama and sumak kawsay [good living].’

In Ecuador, the influence of the concept of Earth Mother has gone beyond ‘protected’ indigenous communities. A producer of television programmes about the natural world said: ‘I don’t put boots on my children when they go into the garden, so they can feel the earth and experience contact with Pachamama. But my sister doesn’t care about all that stuff. She puts shoes on her children when they go out.’

How to say Earth Mother?

As did the parents of Quechua children I met a few days later. But to judge by the highland town of Otavalo, which has one of the biggest year-round traditional craft markets in Latin America, that doesn’t mean the (...)

(2) A group of activists opposed to the government’s decision to exploit part of Yasuní National Park and formed after the failure of the Yasuní-ITT initiative. See Aurélien Bernier, ‘Ecuador’s plan falters’, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, July 2012.